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(+2)

I totally agree with @Ham. While the present incarnation would work well as an alternative mode, its pace actively works against its potential. One of the neat things about card game mechanics is that they let the player consider what the right move is from a constrained set of options, choosing the best path out of some mixture of strategy, assessing risk and pushing their luck. All of that takes time.

At the moment, none of the strategic elements have any breathing room, because you can barely play cards fast enough to out-run the lava, let alone consider what the best long-term strategy is beyond which card won't kill me. It also means that the devil cards, particularly the lava rush, become a sort of instadeath, as any loss of momentum kills your run.

If you do stick with the rapid fire version, and perhaps even if you don't, it might worth looking at how a sort of meta game might work, so that players are encouraged to push further to improve the odds of the next run. Things like buying cards for a starting deck, one-off perks, upgrades, etc

One smaller point is that the health mechanics are a bit over-present considering how small a part they play in a run, as there's only one sort of tile that damages the hull without instantly killing you. It could be interesting if the lava tiles were somewhat survivable in very small doses, as that would add another layer of trade-offs to pathing.

This is so interesting. Early in the jam we had this exact debate. I was on the side of a more strategic version, though I ended up really enjoying the twist of trying to  mix the strategic decision making of a card game with real time pressure. Still, I agree that we're pushing at the absolute limits of being able to make educated decisions given how MUCH time pressure there is. We're gonna explore some different paces based on the feedback <: